auuggghhh!

We were just into the 2nd commercial break when it said "now back to the thrilling 90 minute season finale of Smallville!" Except we'd programmed to tape the usual 60 minutes! Both mrs_lovett and I looked at each other, swore violently, and turned off the tv instantly. What's the point, right?

Can anyone help? Anybody tape that and can loan or copy for me? Dammit. (First house, then cable, then tivo, baby, tivo)

I.D.

One thing that really pisses me off about Intelligent Design theory is that they took a good phrase¹ and used it for their own infernal purposes. I believe in God and in his creation, and I believe that evolution is a fairly sound theory. These two beliefs may not endear me to any scientists or fundamentalists² but I suspect they are in line with the beliefs of a lot of people- mainline Christians, Jews, agnostics and so on. Anyway, I love the idea of God as an intelligent designer of the kosmos, as one who sat down at a big ass finger painting station, potters wheel, drafting table or teletype³ and doodled or maybe scoped out this huge project and then said "Let there be light" and bigbang! there was light. And that there was a reason for making the light first; that there were reasons for the days of creation and the millennia of evolution and so forth. But to buy into Intelligent Design(tm) you have to fucking check your own sense of reason at the door. No worse than that, you have to, shall, indeed must (at the risk of your eternal soul) submit to their entire program.

Anyway, the fuckers have taken a cool phrase that sort of says what a lot of us 21st century Christians believe and turned it into a stalking horse for lies, damn lies and The Holy Office of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (you may know them better as The Inquisition or if you prefer, InquiFUCKINGsition). You don't get to be interested in Intelligent Design without the whole package and All That That Implies. It's like you go shopping for some ideas, and if you say "that sounds interesting I sort of agree" they tell you you must also agree to subjugate your women, beat your children and buy groceries from, I dunno...Wal mart. Or, you know, die and burn in hell.

So bugger those guys. Oh, and I also don't think i believe in intelligent design as in 'Divine Newtonian Order'. It's more like, chaotic evolutionary intelligence. With sex and violence.

Bastards.



¹like "clear skies initiative" and "no child left behind" which are good names for shitty shitty programs, the orwellian irony makes the phrase itself totally ruined. USA/PATRIOT ACT was never a good name, however.
²fundamentalist: another good term applied to low-life finks who deserve my scorn and pity
³cf Stephenson's "hacker demiurge" from the very end of In the beginning was the command line and here's a lovely annotated edition with a wonderful set of its own metaphors: http://home.earthlink.net/~android606/commandline/